Blood
by Evandar
Summary: Oneshot. "He tangled its beads around his fingers and raised it to his lips and smelt blood as he breathed a benediction of hatred over it." Shikamaru is haunted. Mild ShikaHidan, mild gore and weirdness


**Disclaimer: **I do not own _Naruto_ and I am making no profit from this story.

**AN:** This is a gift!fic that I promised to someone nine months ago. It's completely bizarre and weird and partically inspired by one of my critical texts for the Vampire Literature module I'm taking at uni this year. It does contain vague references to old and obscure vampire lit, but...it's not that drastic. I think. It does, however, remain weird. You are hereby forewarned.

The quote at the end, by the way, is completely made up.

* * *

Blood

by Evandar

_He could smell blood. It filled his nose until he choked on it. He could taste it, bitter metal, on his tongue. He pushed himself up from his futon and reached for his light. If something was bleeding, then – _

_ - moonlight glinted off silver hair and a silver rosary, and blood dripped from the pike buried in the chest of the living skeleton in the corner of his room._

"You look terrible, Shika," Ino said.

She didn't look much better. The black kimono she wore just highlighted how pale she was, and her eyes were red and puffy under the careful layer of makeup. She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but her hand was trembling.

By her side, Chouji looked…thin. It was surreal.

Shikamaru closed his eyes and swallowed back the taste of phantom blood. "Just nightmares," he said, and he let her draw her own conclusion.

_He was awake, he knew it; he was standing in the graveyard waiting for Asuma's funeral with his team and Kurenai but they were gone and he was alone. He wasn't alone. He could hear laughter, and even though he couldn't see Him he knew who it was because he could hear the dripping and he could smell the blood that he knew was spilling from His heart._

He stood by Kurenai's side, staring at the name on the grave marker. Her eyes were dry, but her hand rested on her stomach as if shielding the child she carried from the sight of its father's grave. She smiled at him sadly as he promised to take care of her; as he promised to take care of the baby.

He could barely take care of himself.

_He was swimming, and the water was warm. It was thick and heavy and smelt of iron and it wasn't really water at all. Screeching laughter rang in his ears, and standing on the water – not water – was Him. His head was tipped back, and Shikamaru could see stitches straining at the delicate skin. _

_There was no pike in His chest this time. Instead there was a gaping wound; blood was streaming down His body and into the water – not water – Shikamaru was swimming in. It stretched on forever. It was filling his mouth and his nose and he was drowning and all he could hear was laughter._

The clouds were a dirty shade of grey. They were filled with rain that wouldn't fall over Konoha; the wind blowing them north was too strong. Even so, if he strained his senses, he could smell the tang of rain on the air.

It was better than blood.

_There was blood again, and when he opened his eyes, he was met with the sight of Him crouched over him. This time He wasn't bleeding; He was smiling. He was holding His pike and tracing the point over Shikamaru's chest, and Shikamaru watched his own blood well up in its wake. It didn't hurt. Not even when He lowered his head and lapped the wound with His tongue – long and wet and horribly gentle and the cut made an 'X' right in the middle of his chest and blood was dripping from the pike again and Shikamaru closed his eyes and all he could hear was – _

_drip_

_drip_

_drip_

_drip_

"You still aren't sleeping."

The red around Ino's eyes was still there, but she no longer looked as pale. She was back in purple, so maybe that was why.

"I see him die too," she said, and he could hear her choking on it. "Every night. And then I wake up and I can't help crying and –"

"I don't dream about Asuma," Shikamaru told her. "It's _Him_."

The pity in her eyes made him feel sick.

_He wasn't breathing as he leaned over Shikamaru's still form, pinning him to the futon. There was a gaping hole through His heart and the dripping blood spattered onto the covers. He leaned down, His teeth and hair and rosary gleaming and He pressed cold lips to Shikamaru's mouth. He tasted of blood and Shikamaru screamed and gagged and choked on the taste and he –_

He stood in the forest, half hidden by shadow; the sunlight filtering through the leaves glinting off his hair and his rosary and the scythe he held loosely in one hand. He was grinning and he was alive and he was laughing, high and grating.

"Kill me?" He asked. He laughed again. Bitter. "I wish you would."

_He stood over Shikamaru's bed, silent and staring and it was so much worse than when He was bleeding. Pale light shone over his bare chest, showing scars from endless fights and self-mutilation and his rosary. He was beautiful._

The soil was loose from the explosion, and Shikamaru sifted through it. Charred remains oozed blood and throbbed between his fingers. He found the metal plate of the hitai-ate, scored through and covered with ash and soil. Its tie had been destroyed. He slipped it into his kunai pouch. He found the rosary not long after, and tangled its beads around his fingers and raised it to his lips and smelt blood as he breathed a benediction of hatred over it. It too went in the pouch.

He found His head and raised it from the dirt. Violet eyes were open and accusing and His lips spat blood and dirt and oaths over Shikamaru's shirt.

"I can never die, fucker," He told him. "But I like your style."

Shikamaru kissed him. He filled the kiss with hate and rage and the obsession that had built inside of him. When he pulled away, He was staring at him in surprise. Then He smiled and Shikamaru placed His head back into the dirt and covered it. He stood and turned away, and only when he was halfway back to his team mates and their fight with Kakuzu did he realise that he wasn't breathing.

_Shrieks of hatred and laughter echoed from the forest and he stood by his window and listened with his head resting on the glass and his eyes fixed on the pale forms of the deer as they slipped like ghosts between the trees, spooked by the curses that haunted them. He raised a hand to the rosary beads around his neck and felt blood slick against his fingertips and behind him, over the sounds from the forest, he could hear a steady dripping noise._

"Are you okay, Shikamaru?"

He hadn't seen Kurenai in what felt like years, and the swell of her stomach made his head ache and something in his chest clench. She was smiling at him kindly, but he couldn't look her in the eye. He could barely look at her at all. She was beautiful and kind and warm and _she was red against pale skin and the urge to tear and to sacrifice and to taste her life and her child's as he offered them to Him and_ he could barely stand to be in her presence anymore. His promise to take care of her and her baby tasted like ash on his tongue.

"You look awful," she continued. "Have you been eating properly?"

He nodded. He had. He'd given up smoking too.

"Good," she said. "We're worried about you, you know. You've taken this so hard. But –"

"I know," he said. "I just. I miss Him."

"We all do," she replied, and she'd misunderstood. He smiled. She could never understand. In his pocket, his fingers clenched around the beads of His rosary. He could hear dripping.

_He stood by his bedroom window, looking out at the forest and waiting for the laughter to start. The rosary was pressed to his lips and instead of the beads he could taste His mouth pressed against his own again. The moon was full and bright, and Shikamaru could feel its light creeping over him and slithering down his spine. There were no screams. No laughter. No fleeing deer. The forest was silent._

He felt a blast of cold over his skin, and shivered, burrowing deeper under the covers. He'd tasted the sleeping tablets his mother had slipped him, but he hadn't protested.

_There was movement. A pale figure was running through the trees, fluid and graceful. It wasn't a deer, this time. The figure ran on two feet and Shikamaru felt his heart leap in his chest at the sight of Him, and he knew it was Him because He could never die and He would always come back._

Shikamaru woke to the scent of blood. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt like cotton wool and his eyes ached as he opened them, and he regretted taking the sleeping tablets without complaint. He had missed something, he knew, something that made his heart ache.

He couldn't see the source of the smell before he rolled onto his back. A message was written in large, messy, flaking letters on the wall beside his bed. He sat up sharply and looked around his room again, taking in the details that his sleep-dulled mind had missed. His window and curtains were wide open, filling his room with sunlight and a cool breeze. The plate of His hitai-ate was where he'd left it on his bedside table, but the rosary he'd reverently put before it the night before was gone.

And there was writing on the wall. To paint it, He would have had to clamber right over Shikamaru's sleeping body; He would have had to carve Himself open while standing above him. He would have laughed, Shikamaru thought, soft and low and wicked and completely unlike anything else he'd heard from Him before.

He reached up a hand to touch the flaking blood, to tell himself that it was real and that He had really returned.

For blood is the life,

And those that drink from me

Shall live forever

As the disciples of Jashin on earth.

Book of Jashin 7: 9-12


End file.
